Mexicans hyped for Super Bowl fiestas

American football gains Latino popularity, millions plan to watch Sunday's big game

DUDLEY ALTHAUS, Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

Published
6:30 am CST, Tuesday, January 27, 2004

MEXICO CITY -- When the pre-game hype and glitz end and football begins Sunday, Horacio Balderas will be watching as intently as anyone from his front-row table at a betting parlor in the heart of the Mexican capital.

"Fans here don't have much emotion over these teams playing, but it's the Super Bowl," Balderas, a 53-year-old government employee, said as he eyed his betting sheets at the Caliente parlor in the Zona Rosa, the fading nightclub district of central Mexico City. "Many people here love American football."

They certainly do. American-style football has become Mexico's second most popular spectator sport after soccer.

Grudge matches between the oldest university teams in Mexico City annually draw crowds of close to 60,000 spectators. The country's largest newspapers cover all of the NFL's Monday night games.

The NFL's market research estimates that up to 20 million Mexicans -- one-fifth of the country's population -- are at least casual fans and calculates that 13 million Mexicans watched last year's Super Bowl on television, said Geraldine Gonzalez, an executive in the league's Mexico City offices.

Mexicans do enjoy other U.S. sports. Baseball is rising in popularity as fans follow major-league and Mexican League teams -- in which many Americans play. And professional basketball games are a favorite at Mexican sports bars, especially during the playoffs.

But football is the one American game that captivates most Mexican fans.

"People get involved in the players, the coaches, everything," Caliente manager Jose Flores said. "They really get caught up in the workings of the sport."

Balderas, who finds himself among the few Mexican men who dislike soccer, said he finds U.S. football more exciting, more strategic and, of course, more violent.

"It's complete action," said Balderas, who played linebacker in high school and college in Mexico. "We humans have some attraction to violence, but it's controlled in football, legitimate."

More than 112,000 fans packed Mexico City's Aztec Stadium in 1994 to watch an NFL exhibition game between the Dallas Cowboys -- the favorite team of many Mexicans -- and the Houston Oilers. The crowd was the largest in NFL history.

Still, the numbers don't impress many Mexicans.

"That's not many fans in a country of 100 million people," Balderas said.

He said the NFL might increase its fan base in Mexico if its teams carried more Mexican or Mexican-American players.

"Look what happened to the (NBA's Dallas) Mavericks with (Mexico native Eduardo) Najera," he said. "People from here fly up there to see him play."

Less than 2 percent of the more than 1,500 players in the NFL are Latinos, according to league figures, and even fewer are of Mexican descent.

Organized football games first appeared in Mexico more than 70 years ago when clubs at the country's largest universities formed teams. In recent years, the number of teams at high schools has grown. More than 100,000 Mexicans, from grade school to college, play the game on club teams, said Jose Jorge Orobio, the president of the Mexican Federation of American Football.

"There has always been a great interest in the sport," Orobio said.

Mexican all-star teams won the Global Junior Championships football tournament for the first two years after its founding in 1997. The NFL-sponsored tournament, which is part of the Super Bowl's festivities, pits high school-aged players from the United States against those from foreign countries.

A Mexican team will vie for the championship beginning Wednesday at Houston's Tully Stadium. The Mexicans and teams from Russia, Japan and Canada will take on an all-star squad from Houston-area high schools.

"We have a good team," Orobio said shortly before boarding a plane for Houston. "Last year we almost beat the United States."

Despite football's popularity in Mexico, the NFL hasn't played an exhibition game there the past two seasons. Neither of Mexico's national television networks has broadcast an NFL game this season. Instead, FoxSports, ESPN and DirectTV broadcast the games in Mexico.

NFL football was carried by Mexico's networks for 36 years before discussions between the league and the broadcasters about transmission rights fell idle last year, Gonzalez said.

The NFL made deals last fall with a television group in Monterrey that broadcasts throughout northeastern Mexico and with a television station in the northwestern city of Hermosillo, Gonzalez said. But there are no immediate discussions about an NFL expansion team in Mexico, she said.

The Texans, like other NFL teams, have been working to attract more Latino fans in the United States. But the team has made little headway south of the Rio Grande.

"The franchise is too new," said Flores. "It doesn't interest people here."

Houston's team might not yet be an attraction in Mexico, but Sunday's game will be. Hundreds of Mexicans have purchased package deals costing as much as $8,500 for hotel rooms and tickets. Plans offering Houston hotels and nose-bleed seats in the end zone for more than $3,500 have sold out, travel agents say.

"Everyone appreciates a good game," said Cesar Pineda, a sportswriter at Universal, one of Mexico City's leading newspapers. "And the Super Bowl is the Super Bowl."

Fans who can't afford to travel to Houston will be scrambling for television sets. Sports bars, restaurants and neighborhood cantinas are advertising Sunday's game, confident of drawing crowds.

Balderas and more than a few others will be squeezing into betting halls like the one in the Zona Rosa, hoping for profit as well as pleasure. He said he favors the New England Patriots, but after checking the odds, which favor Carolina, he has his money on the Panthers.